Science at Bangor & in the News
We are a half-day away from Spring Break as I type this. Chemistry just wrapped up our unit on the internal structure of atoms. We learned about electrons, charges, and how different types of compounds have different structures. We wrapped up the unit by learning how to name different types of compounds. After the juniors get through testing, we will start a unit that explores what chemical reactions are and different types of chemical reactions. We will observe different types of reactions and then use our particle model to explain what happened. I'm really looking forward to this unit because we will get to perform some fun labs and try to make sense of our observations.
In Science 9 we wrapped up a unit on energy last week and started a unit on forces. We ended the week by beginning to represent forces in a diagram. Once we get all of the new vocabulary down, I think we will begin to have a lot of fun with this unit. We will wrap this unit up with an egg drop. The students will be given some design constraints (volume, mass, no parachutes/wings/etc) and will design and build a container that will keep the egg in tact after being dropped from either the crow's nest or the gym roof. On our half-day last week, 5th hour Science 9 began working with their new groups. In order to start working as a team, the groups were challenged to save Fred. Fred (the gummy worm) was out on Lake Michigan in his boat (a cup) when it capsized. Fred was able to get on top of the boat, but his lifesaver (a gummy Lifesaver) was stuck under the boat. The teams needed to use their rescue tools (paperclips) to get Fred off the boat, right the boat, & then get Fred into his lifesaver & back into his boat. The teams had to write directions on how they made the rescue. They switched instructions with another team and needed to perform the rescue again while strictly following the other team's instructions. This was a very fun exercise for everyone, and also a very important one in science. Scientists communicate their discoveries in writing. Part of new ideas being accepted in the scientific community is repeatability. If other scientists are not able to repeat the original work, that original work gets called into question. Scientists need to communicate what they discovered and exactly how they discovered it. I think having to follow another group's instructions for saving Fred emphasized how important written communication in science is.
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It has certainly been a while! I apologize for the long absence. Life got a little hectic and then I managed to catch some sort of virus. Since the last update, Science 9 has been studying energy. We started out by thinking about how energy is involved in different situations that the students likely experienced before (dropping a ball, using a pull-back or wind-up toy, rubbing hands together). After learning about the different ways that energy can be stored or transferred, the students are putting their new knowledge to the test by building Rube Goldberg machines. For a great example, watch this video for Goldie Blox. Chemistry wrapped up a unit about counting particles & then began investigating internal structure. We used interactions involving static electricity to deduce that there are charged particles inside atoms. We are now starting to learn about how electrons influence how compounds form and how the structure of compounds affects their properties (strength, melting point, boiling point, etc.). In other exciting news, my GoFundMe campaign to purchase new equipment is fully funded! I now have 6 new ChromeBooks and 6 sets of Vernier instruments that will interface with the ChromeBooks. These tools will allow us to perform more experiments, collect better data, and share data with each other as we collect it. I am so grateful to everyone who donated and shared the campaign and am looking forward to helping the students experience how the process of science actually works.
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Ms. Lyons
Science is amazing, check it out! Archives
May 2016
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